[A-PAL] A-PAL Newsletter, No. 022

[kosova at jps.net]

Welcome to Albanian Prisoner Advocacy List -- Prisoner Pals Newsletter,
No. 022, May 08, 2000

This report highlights the developments on the prisoner issue for the week
of April 30, 2000.

==========================================
A-PAL STATEMENT:
==========================================
	The UN Security Council sent members to visit Kosova this week. Led by
Ambassador Anwaril Karim of Chowdhury of Bangladesh, they were overwhelmed
not only with the size of the task of rebuilding Kosova, but by the grief of
the families of missing and detained persons.
	Besides the large demonstrations in the streets of Prishtina and Gjakova
for the release of prisoners, 46 Albanians started a hunger strike to
protest the continued detention of the 1,000 Albanian prisoners.
     RELEASE THE KOSOVAR POLITICAL PRISONERS FROM SERBIA NOW!

==========================================
WEEK OF APRIL 30, 2000 TOPICS:
==========================================
* AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE: UN Security Council says fate of missing persons top
issue in Kosovo
* FREEB92 DAILY NEWS: Security Council must deal with imprisoned Kosovars:
delegation head
* UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL: Hunger strikers seek release of Albanians
* KOSOVAPRESS: And students are in hunger strike
* RADIO 21: Citizens Council for Protests continue with Hunger Strike
* UNMIK: Civilian administration
* KOSOVAPRESS: All they are on jails, they are our blood
* KOSOVAPRESS: Alain Cole has ensured that ICRC will pledge to release
prisoners
* KOSOVAPRESS: Seven persons released from prison of Pozharevci
* KOSOVAPRESS: The hunger strikers refuse medical control
* KOSOVAPRESS: Nine hunger strikers are decedent for their demands
* AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE: Kosovo Albanian receives emotional welcome after
year in Serb jail
* Radio 21: Citizen's Council for Protests Stop 9 day Hunger Strike
* AFP: Serbian court sentences 14 Kosovo Albanians for terrorism
* UNITED NATIONS: Report of Special UN Security Council Mission to Kosovo
* UNITED NATIONS: Security Council Mission Focuses on Kosovo's Missing
* WOMEN IN BLACK: Trials in Serbia
* NEW YORK TIMES: U.N. Delegation Winds Up Visit to Kosovo
* AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE: UN Security Council team end mission to Kosovo
* HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER: Satirist Boban "Bapsi" Miletic On Trial
* FREESERBIA: Otpor activists and a lawyer injured in a street fight in
Pozarevac
* INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE: State
Department on Harassment of Student Opposition in Serbia

==========================================
QUOTES OF THE WEEK:
==========================================
	Mr. Chowdhury said there was a strong need for a high-level figure to be
appointed to deal specifically with that issue.  "It is something that is
burning continuously, and this aspect needs special attention," he said.
Mr. Chowdury said he was moved by the sight, and that the council could not
maintain its credibility if it failed to address the issue.
	May 5, the spokesman of this hunger strike Besim Morina, said that their
health state is becoming more worse, there were two medical intervention,
and one of the strikers was released by the doctor recommend. The strikers
were asked when they are going to stop it. The answer was it would be
stopped when our demands are realized.
     May 6, "I have news from the others who were with me in prison," Bejta
told the waiting villagers. But I've forgotten everything, it'll come back
later."  He confined himself to just a few words on his detention: "Even
cows wouldn't be treated like that."


==========================================
WEEK’S REQUESTED ACTION:
==========================================
We must support the demonstrations in Prishtina and the hunger strikers with
our emails to show the Security Council that this is an International Issue,
a Violation of International Law, and give our utmost support.

Please Contact:

	Ambassador Anwaril Karim Chowdhury/ Bangladesh
	Ambassador Robert Fowler/ Canada
	Ambassador Richard Holbrooke/ Usa
	Ambassador Sergei Lavrov/Russia
	Ambassador Shen Guofeng/China

As well as ambassadors from Jamaica, Mexico, Ukraine, Argentina, Britain,
France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.

==========================================
FULL REPORTS AND ARTICLES BEGIN HERE:
==========================================

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
UN Security Council says fate of missing persons top issue in Kosovo

May 01, 2000

UNITED NATIONS, May 1 (AFP) - The credibility of the UN Security Council
depends upon its handling of the problem of people missing from Kosovo, the
leader of a council mission to the province said Monday.
     "The issue of missing persons and detainees emerged again and again,"
the ambassador of Bangladesh, Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, said after returning
from a two-day visit to Kosovo with seven other ambassadors.
     "It broke our hearts to see hundreds of families gathering with
photographs of their near and dear ones who are missing, for 10 or 12
months," he told a news conference, and added:
     "The council cannot maintain credibility unless we address this issue."
     In a report to the council, Chowdhury said the ambassadors had "noted
the strong support of the different ethnic communities for the appointment
of a special envoy for detainees and missing persons."
     While in Kosovo, he had vowed to bring the plight of some 1,200 ethnic
Albanians held in Serbian jails to the attention of the UN Security Council.
     On Saturday, in the western Kosovar town of Djakovica, the ambassadors
were told that about 1,200 local ethnic Albanians were still missing since
the conflict.
     A crowd of 200 to 300 ethnic Albanians greeted the delegation in front
of the town hall, carrying photographs of missing relatives or persons
imprisoned in Serbia.
     Chowdhury's report said "the lack of an effective and unbiased rule of
law in Kosovo was a recurring theme at many of the meetings" the ambassadors
had with UN officials and community representatives.
     It blamed the lack of physical security and freedom of movement for the
refusal of Kosovo's Serb community to take part in municipal elections which
the UN administrators plan to hold later this year.
     But, the report said, "all ethnic communities expressed a desire to
live together in peace" -- a claim which Chowdhury repeated to reporters.
     Unless one had visited Kosovo, he said, "it is not possible comprehend
the enormity of the task facing the UN mission (UNMIK)" which took over the
running of the province after NATO warplanes chased Yugoslav forces out last
year.
     UNMIK's mandate comes up for renewal by the Security Council on June 10
and Chowdhury said the people of Kosovar were waiting for it as a signal and
"a confidence-building measure."

Story from AFP   Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/ct/Qun-kosovo.RO4H_Ay2.html

==========================================

FREEB92 DAILY NEWS
Security Council must deal with imprisoned Kosovars: delegation head

May 02, 2000

NEW YORK, Tuesday - The head of a UN Security Council delegation which
visited Kosovo last week has called on the United Nations to appoint a
special envoy to investigate the issue of Albanians detained by Serbian
authorities. Anwarul Chowdury told media in New York today that the Council
must deal with the issue in order to preserve its credibility and could not
ignore about 1,200 Albanians imprisoned in Serbia.

http://www.freeb92.net/archive/e/

==========================================

UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Hunger strikers seek release of Albanians

May 01, 2000
By LULZIM COTA

TIRANA, Albania, May 1 (UPI) -- Forty-eight ethnic Albanians, some of them
women, on Monday began the fourth day of a hunger strike in Pristina,
demanding that their relatives be released from Serbian prisons, the British
Broadcasting Corp., reported.
     Hunger strikers hoped to pressure the international community and
Albanian parties in Kosovo to increase their efforts to get thousands of
Albanians released, said Shukri Klinaku, a hunger strike leader. He said the
hunger strikers also hoped investigations would be undertaken into other
Albanians' disappearances.
     The strikers expressed skepticism about a promise given by a U.N.
Security Council delegation that visited Kosovo last week. The delegation
promised to report their requests to the international body.
     This was the first hunger strike since June 1999, when NATO troops
entered Kosovo. There was no reaction by the United Nations or by Kosovo
Albanian parties. However, the strikers seemed resolute.
     "I decided to join the hunger strike until all Albanian prisoners are
released and until the destiny of the missing people is known," said Violeta
Shala, whose two brothers disappeared last year.
     Belgrade authorities said there are 965 Kosovo Albanians in Serbia's
prisons; the international Red Cross has put the number at 2,000; and
Albanian human rights organizations say some 5,000 Albanians are in Serb
prisons.
     Some 6,000 Albanians disappeared during the conflict, according to
experts with the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia in The Hague.

Story from UPI / LULZIM COTA
Copyright 2000 by United Press International (via ClariNet)
http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/cx/Ukosovo-strike.RWeN_Ay1.html

==========================================

KOSOVAPRESS
And students are in hunger strike

May 03, 2000

Prishtinë, May 3 (Kosovapress) - Yesterday afternoon about 5 p.m. at the
entrance of Philology Faculty, one group of students of Prishtina University
started their hunger strike. Their demands are to release all the Albanian
prisoners which are held on the Serbian jails. The spokesman of this strike,
student Besim Morina, said that this strike we have organized in an
independent way and without any political goals.
	We support this method of strike and to sensibilise the international
community, and they should know that the prisoners which are taken as
hostages during the war, they are a hard wound for us. Our strike will
continue till our demands are realized.

http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/3_5_2000_2.htm


==========================================

RADIO 21
Citizens Council for Protests continue with Hunger Strike

May 04, 2000

	The 9 members of the Citizens Council for Protests are continuing with the
hunger strike. Other citizens have joined them on their 7th day. The hunger
strike is being widened in many other towns of Kosova supporting the
initiative. The hunger strikers in Prishtina said today only concrete steps
will make us stop our hunger strike. The release of thousands of Albanians
from Serbian prisons is demanded.

http://www.radio21.net/english/e4_5_00a.htm

==========================================

UNMIK
Civilian administration

May 03, 2000

Kouchner hopes for speedy appointment of special representative for
missing persons:
	The head of UNMIK, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, today said that he hoped that the
visit of the Security Council last week in Kosovo would speed up the
appointment of the special envoy on detainees and missing persons.
	Briefing the KTC about the visit, Dr. Kouchner said that the appointment of
the special envoy would help put pressure on Belgrade regarding detainees
held in Serbian prisons.
	Dr. Kouchner also said he had met twice with people protesting for action
on detainees and missing persons, led by Mr. Shukri Klinaku of the LKCK
party. He had also arranged a meeting between them and the
Security Council delegation and regretted the resignation of Mr. Klinaku
from the KTC over the issue.

http://www.un.org/peace/kosovo/news/update.htm

==========================================

KOSOVAPRESS
All they are on jails, they are our blood

May 04, 2000

Prishtinë, May 4 (Kosovapress) - The Kosova Albanians can not enjoy their
freedom while the Albanian prisoners are in Serbian jails and while nothing
is known about the missing persons, these are words of one of the members of
this hunger strike who is 79 years old. He added when I heard about the
hunger strike in Prishtina, I decided to join them. I have seen by myself
the çetnic Serbs in Gjakova, when they took from their houses thousands of
Albanians, among them I have bee too.
	They released me as I was the oldest in the group. Now, I hope that our
demands will be heard and understood to the civilized world, including here
and our Kosova political leaders. If their children were on the Serbian
jails, what they would do? There is no need to forget that all the prisoners
who are in Serbian jails, they are our blood, ended the old man Haxhi
Miftari.

http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/4_5_2000_1.htm

==========================================

KOSOVAPRESS
Alain Cole has ensured that ICRC will pledge to release prisoners

May 05, 2000

Prishtinë, May 5 (Kosovapress) - The chief of ICRC, mission in Kosova, Mr.
Alain Cole, has ensured on Thursday the group of hunger strikers that they
will pledge about the release of prisoners and about the missing persons.
	He stressed that ICRC currently will visit the prisoners in Serbia jails,
to provide them a human treatment and better conditions. More than 700
prisoners have been campaigned by the ICRC to Kosova. Also he added that our
efforts are going on to find out the fate of 3000 missing persons. One book
will be published soon by the names of missing persons from all the
municipalities of Kosova. By the end he stressed that he is very concerned
about the families who still do not know anything about their dearest kin.

http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/5_5_2000_1.htm

==========================================

KOSOVAPRESS
Seven persons released from prison of Pozharevci

May 05, 2000

Prishtinë, May 5 (Kosovapress) - Yesterday late, ICRC campaigned seven
prisoners to Kosova who were released by the prison of Pozharevci. Five of
them were from Vushtria and the other two from Mitrovica.

==========================================

KOSOVAPRESS
The hunger strikers refuse medical control

May 05, 2000

Prishtinë, May 5 (Kosovapress) - Today is the eighth day of hunger strike
demonstrated by the nine members of City Council Protestors. The strikers
refused their medical control, even their health looks much worse.
	Also students of hunger strike are now for the fourth day on strike, as we
know their demands are to release all Albanians from the Serbian jails. As
we are informed by the spokesman of this hunger strike Besim Morina, said
that their health state is becoming more worse, there were two medical
intervention, and one of the strikers was released by the doctor recommend.
The strikers were asked when they are going to stop it. The answer was it
would be stopped when our demands are realized.

http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/5_5_2000_.htm

==========================================

KOSOVAPRESS
Nine hunger strikers are decedent for their demands

May 06, 2000

Prishtinë, May 6 (Kosovapress) - Today is the ninth day, where hunger
strikers are very decedent on their demands. As it is known their demands
are to release all the Albanian prisoners from Serbia jails and to find the
missing persons. Apparently their health seems getting worse and worse, as
we got announced by the escorts around they do not want anyone getting close
to them even from their families. The only way it is that journalists can
contact to them at 2 p.m.
	Also at the other place in Prishtina, students hunger strike is on the
fifth day of their protest. They say we know that the release of prisoners
is on the Milosheviq`s hands, but UNMIK and IAC, they are doing nothing
including this process. Even they see a reason to visit us. Mostly we are
surprised by our political representatives. They said we know very well who
is in Prison there we have some high levels such as Albin Kurti who
represents the Union Students. And Ukshin Hoti simbolise the state of
Kosova, and we know what we are in strike for.

http://www.kosovapress.com/english/maj/6_5_2000_.htm

==========================================

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Kosovo Albanian receives emotional welcome after year in Serb jail

May 06, 2000

MERDARE, Yugoslavia, May 6 (AFP) - Almost 50 people showed up on this
northern crossing point on the Kosovo-Serbia boundary to greet Sylejman
Bejta as he returned from almost a year in Serbia's jails.
     His two daughters, wife, his cousins, family and friends awaited the
35-year-old on Thursday, their excitement giving way to silence, tears
before they took turns in throwing themselves into his arms.
     Arrested on May 2 last year by Serbian police in his northern village
of Smrekovnica, Bejta was first imprisoned a few kilometers away, and was
later transferred to a prison in the northern town of Kosovska Mitrovica.
     Along with some 2,000 other Kosovo Albanian prisoners, he was then
moved to Serbia shortly before NATO troops arrived in Kosovo last June.
     He was held in Pozarevac, some 60 kilometres (40 miles) southeast of
Belgrade, where he was sentenced to a year in prison for "terrorist
activities."
     His family however deny he had any links with the separatist Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) which fought Belgrade for more than two years.
     While in prison he received only a few letters, delivered by the Red
Cross, from his family who -- unlike the relatives of other prisoners --
were never allowed to visit him.
     On May 3 his prison term ended.
     His family and friends waited at the crossing for two hours, their cars
parked all along the narrow road leading to Merdare, a silent and deserted
village in the northern hills of Kosovo.
     They had turned up the day before too after Bejta's lawyers warned them
he was about to be freed, but he did not come.
     "It was too late yesterday to bring him to the border," said Aribani
Ibachi, prisoner coordinator for the International Committee of the Red
Cross (ICRC).
     Despite the warnings of British peacekeeping troops to stand back from
the boundary, the crowd edged forward, desperate to catch a glimpse of him.
     "For them, as long as he hasn't crossed, he's still in prison, perhaps
even dead," said Ibachi.
     "There he is, I saw him," cried one of the cousins, breaking into sobs.
Some 50 metres (yards) away Bejta stepped out of the ICRC car that led him
to the border, accompanied by six other ethnic Albanians released from Serb
jails.
     Bejta, carrying two plastic bags, waved back as they urged him to
hurry, before each of them took turns in throwing themselves into his arms.
     "It is a rebirth," said one of his relatives. "We didn't think we'd see
him alive again."
     "I have news from the others who were with me in prison," Bejta told
the waiting villagers. "But I've forgotten everything, it'll come  back
later."
     He confined himself to just a few words on his detention: "Even cows
wouldn't be treated like that."
     Although some 800 ethnic Albanians have been released, 1,200 remain in
prison across the boundary despite frequent protests in Kosovo for their
release.
     The head of Kosovo's UN mission, Frenchman Bernard Kouchner, has
demanded their immediate and unconditional release.
     The ICRC has said that first and foremost there must be fair trials in
Serbia and decent conditions in the jails.

Story from AFP / Claire Snegaroff
Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)

http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/ce/Qkosovo-prisoners.Rsa__Ay6.html

==========================================

Radio 21
Citizen’s Council for Protests Stop 9 day Hunger Strike

May 06, 2000 20:27 CET

	The 9 members of the Citizen's Council for Protests have stopped their 9
days long hunger strike today in Prishtina. The hunger strike had started on
26th of April as a protest to release thousands of Albanians held in Serbian
Prisons and about the fate of thousands disappeared persons. The Council
President, Shukri Klinaku, said Albanian politicians should be more active
on this matter.

http://www.radio21.net/english/e6_5_00a.htm

==========================================

AFP
Serbian court sentences 14 Kosovo Albanians for terrorism

May 04, 2000

BELGRADE, May 4 (AFP) - Fourteen Kosovo Albanians were sentenced to prison
terms ranging from 20 months to 12 years on charges of terrorism by a court
in the southern Serbian town of Nis, the pro-government daily Politika
reported Friday.
     The fourteen, all from the area around the southern Kosovo town of Suva
Reka, were arrested last spring during the NATO bombing campaign and accused
of "committing attacks on the Yugoslav army and police units," the daily
said.
     It added that the defendants "admitted they had to join" the ethnic
Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), considered terrorists by Belgrade.
     Milazin Korteshi and Argon Morina were sentenced to 12 years
imprisonment, Aslam Lumi and Rasim Krueziu got 11-year sentences, while
Dxavid Korteshi and Gazmend Batiqi received eight-year prison terms.
     A further eight defendants were sentenced to prison terms ranging from
20 months to two and a half years, the daily said.
     Last June, Yugoslav authorities transferred more than 2,000 prisoners,
mainly Kosovo Albanians, to Serbia as its troops pulled out of the province
to make way for NATO-led peacekeepers.
     Serbian Justice Minister Dragoljub Jankovic said last month that 979
prisoners brought from Kosovo were still being held in Serbian prisons.
     All but 15 or 20 of them were ethnic Albanians, he said.
     About 500 prisoners have been released, but more than 250 have received
heavy prison sentences in trials criticized by international human rights
groups, the Belgrade-based Humanitarian Law Centre has estimated.

Story from AFP   Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/ac/Qyugo-kosovo.RTNx_Ay4.html

==========================================

UNITED NATIONS
Report of Special UN Security Council Mission to Kosovo

(Eight-member U.N. delegation visits Kosovo April 27-29)

United Nations Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh led an
eight-member delegation to Kosovo April 27-29 to monitor the implementation
of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1244 and 1160; observe the operations
of the U.N. Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) and gain a
greater understanding of the situation on the ground; and convey a strong
message to Kosovo communities on the need to reject violence and to build a
stable and secure society.

Following is the report of the Special Security Council Mission:
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0055.htm

==========================================

UNITED NATIONS
Security Council Mission Focuses on Kosovo's Missing
(Leader suggests appointment of special U.N. envoy)

By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

May 03, 2000

United Nations -- Returning from a two-day mission to Kosovo, the head of a
special Security Council delegation said May 1 that the issue of missing
persons and detainees is a humanitarian one that must be addressed
immediately by the council if the United Nations is going to remain
credible.
     Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of Bangladesh, head of the mission,
said that wherever the eight-member delegation traveled, from U.N.
headquarters to Kosovo grave sites, "the issue of missing persons and
detainees came back again and again."
     "It broke our hearts to see hundreds of families gathering with the
photographs of their near and dear ones who are missing for ten, twelve
months," the ambassador said. "It is a great humanitarian issue which needs
our attention."
     "The council cannot maintain a credibility unless we address this
issue....(of) all missing persons irrespective of where they came from or
who they are, irrespective of their ethnicity. This issue needs our
attention and we must do something about it," Chowdhury said.
     The mission has suggested that the council consider appointing a
special envoy for detainees and missing persons in Kosovo, he noted.
     Concerned about the problems being faced by the U.N. Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), the council sent a delegation of
its members to observe operations and gain a greater understanding of the
situation on the ground.
     Another main objective of the mission was to bring a message to the
communities of Kosovo to "please reject violence, please try to build a
secure and safe society because multi-ethnic community is the only hope for
Kosovo, the best hope for Kosovo," Chowdhury said at a press conference
after the delegation briefed the entire council in closed session.
     Three areas need attention, the ambassador said. "One is missing
persons and detainees -- that has to be attended immediately. The second is
the question of security and the violence, and the third is the question of
the refugees, displaced persons, and returnees."
     Those three core issues "affect the broader issues of economic
recovery, municipal elections, the building of administrative structures,"
he said.
     The ambassador, who was the president of the Security Council in March,
said that the rare visit of Security Council members to a U.N. operation
"was very useful."
     "Without such a visit to see the U.N. operations it is not possible to
comprehend the enormity of the task that the U.N. is facing in Kosovo,"
Chowdhury said.
     "It is absolutely impossible for us sitting in New York to get the
idea. The United Nations is doing a magnificent job in the circumstances,"
he said. "The Security Council, I am sure, when it adopted resolution 1244
had no clue that the UNMIK will be that pervasive, that wide-ranging, that
broadly spread out all over Kosovo."
     "The U.N. is running Kosovo for all practical purposes now," he said.
     Another Security Council mission, headed by U.S. Ambassador to the
United Nations Richard Holbrooke, is leaving May 1 for the Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC), the site of another major U.N. peacekeeping
operation.
     Also meeting with journalists, Holbrooke said the two council missions
"show the emerging centrality of the Security Council as an organization
which doesn't just sit in New York and talk, but follows up."
     "That is our goal. We believe in the importance of the Security Council
and we think that we are evolving towards a useful process which, while it
puts great physical pressures on the 15 members of the Security Council, has
increasing value in conflict resolution and conflict prevention," he said.
     "The drama of these back-to-back missions [to Kosovo and the DRC] --
the two most explosive places on Earth -- should tell the world how
important all the members of the United Nations consider the Security
Council," Holbrooke said.
     Chowdhury said the mission was "very impressed by a clear desire of the
communities to try to work to live peacefully together, to live with each
other. It is a difficult process. Reconciliation and healing of wounds do
not take place overnight."
     "In Kosovo, the best hope is the younger generation who is looking
ahead to a bright future as a part of Europe, the tremendous opportunities
for them. Why should they let it go? I think this is dawning on them. And
the international community is there to help them," he said.
     In addition to Chowdhury, other members of the mission were Ambassador
Arnoldo Listre of Argentina; Ambassador Michel Duval of Canada; Ambassador
Shen Guofang of China; Ambassador M. Patricia Durrant of Jamaica; Ambassador
Hasmy Agam of Malaysia; Ambassador Sergey Lavrov of Russia; and Ambassador
Volodymyr Yel'chenko of Ukraine.
     In its written report to the council, the mission said that despite a
steady improvement in the overall level of violence and criminality, attacks
against minorities continue and special measures of protection must
constantly be maintained.
     Inadequate physical, social and economic security remains a major
concern, the mission report said. "Lack of freedom of movement, access to
education, health care, social services and employment hampers the return of
internally displaced persons, primarily Serbs and the Roma, and
significantly impedes the integration of ethnic minorities into public
life."
     The mission called "unfortunate" the fact that all factions of the
Kosovo Serb community have chosen not to participate in the upcoming
municipal elections because of security concerns.
     Substantial efforts by UNMIK and the NATO-led peacekeepers (KFOR),
"backed up by the strong support of the international community, are
essential to encourage and create the conditions for Serb participation,
including those who are displaced outside Kosovo," the report said.

==========================================

WOMEN IN BLACK
Trials in Serbia

May, 2000

PART ONE

	Trial in Nis, April 18, 2000: a group judgement for 145 Albanians from
Gjakova, Kosovo
	Never in the post-war period (from 1945 until now) has there been such a
large number of people judged at the same time; the security forces in front
of the Nis court and inside the court were numerous and rigorous; the
information about the accused were read for three hours.
	This occurred during the first day of this marathon trial's investigation.
After waiting an hour, they let us pass into the courtroom and seated us in
the last row; in front of us observers were two rows of policemen, in front
of them the accused-145 men of ethnic Albanian origin, between the ages of
18 and 55; in front of them were thirty lawyers, with Serbian and Albanian
names.
	The names of four streets were repeated continuously: Radomir Terzic, Hasim
Boksi, Bajram Curi, Jovan Jovanovic, again Radomir Terzic (there are more
arrested from this street). Names of Serbian and Albanian streets, all the
accused of one name, the Albanian. More than fifty of the accused were born
after 1970, two are minors (at the moment of arrest), an accused between the
age of 40-45 years is almost blind, another could hardly stand because of
being sick. Hearing the names of the streets where those accused live and
from where they were taken, it is obvious that the police and army made
various raids in the same neighborhood; better said, in these four streets
they caught them, neighbors carrying them, pals of the neighborhood . . . As
one of the defenders said after the first day of the trial, "for the ethnic
Albanians there are no vigilant laws-eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth is
the only law vigilant."  Among the accused are more workers, technical
experts, and artisans, but there are also teachers and professors. Observing
this farce, I asked myself: what will all this serve when the sentences are
pronounced, depending on political needs, on the regime, on their secret
games, or also on lucrative financial transactions.
	The first day of the trial for this group, which was accused of the penal
crime of having associated for hostile and terrorist aims, ended shortly
before 13h.  It continued on April 19th and lasted the whole week.  Sadly, I
could not attend the trial for more than a day.  It is very difficult to
observe so many trials in this country. Someone said a few days ago that
"Serbia has become an endless courtroom."

Stasa Zajovic, Women in Black, April 2000.


PART TWO

	The most prestigious human rights organization in the F.R. of Yugoslavia
gave a communication about the trial against the group from
Djakovica(Gjakova):

TRIAL WITHOUT PRECEDENTS IN THE JUDICIAL PRAXIS

	The trial for the group from Gjakova, initiated April 18th, after the
interrogation of eighty accused, will continue on May 8, 2000 when the rest
of the 165 accused will be interrogated.  All are accused for having
committed the crime of "terrorism during a state of war."  They were
arrested in April and May of 1999; the majority of them were arrested the
10th and 11th of May '99, after the order of the Yugoslav army (VJ) and
Serbian police (MUP) to abandon their houses with their families and move to
a more secure part of the city.  Among the accused are two minors: Blerim
Jukik and Valdet Krasniqi, states the communication from the Fund for
Humanitarian Rights.
	In their defense, 80 interrogated (from 145 total) described in a very
persuasive way that they were arrested after the Yugoslav army and Serbian
police gave the order to civilians in the old center of the city to leave
their houses, for reasons of security and to move to another area of the
city.  Several hundred people were retained by the police while they went
towards the center and were moved by bus to a metal factory; there they
stayed three days, after which the women, elderly and children were freed,
while the young men were transported to a provincial jail in the region of
Cerim.
	Another group of people arrived to the center, in front of city hall, and
there the men were removed and taken to the social security building, which
the police occupied.  After taking the personal information and from some
"gloves of paraffin," all were moved to a provincial jail.
	Of three hundred persons arrested, on May 16, 1999 the police freed close
to 150 elderly and infirm while the remaining (154) were detained under the
order of capture and with thirty days of jail, on the basis of the decree of
the penal code during the state of war.
	Afterwards they were taken first to the basement of the merchant Sali
Banane in Pec (Peja) and on the 18th of May to the "Dubrava" jail in Istok,
Kosovo.  Nine people from this group died during and after the bombing of
this "Dubrava" jail by NATO.
	The accusation makes reference to three separate incidents: April 10 and
the 7th and 9th of May 1999, when supposedly the incriminated persons
performed a terrorist act against members of the army and police when a
policeman and two members of the army were killed and many of them were
slightly or gravely injured.  In their defense, the accused said that the
situation in Gjakova was such that none of them, except two that had a work
obligation, dared to leave their houses since the beginning of the NATO
bombing.  In the homes of a great number of these people were housed the
police and the army, who remained in their neighborhood after the accused
and their families had to abandon their homes.  All movement of the citizens
of Gjakova was under the rigorous control of the army and police.  The
accused mentioned before the court names of officials from the Yugoslav army
whose units stayed in their neighborhood the whole time.
	The trial of the group of Albanians from Gjakova is a case without
precedents in the judicial practice of ex-Yugoslavia, from 1945 to this day.
Never has there been such a large group tried and all of them supposedly
guilty of the same crime, states the communication from the Fund for
Humanitarian Rights.

PART THREE

Abuse of prisons for political ends:
GIVE A PENCIL TO FLORA BROVINA!

	I truly live in sinister times, Brecht says; he that still laughs has not
realized this terrible news.  Nineteen passengers disappeared from the
Belgrade-Bar train in the whereabouts of Strpci, February 27, 1993, and
since then all traces have been lost.  Slavko Curuvija, an independent
journalist, was shot dead on the street in broad daylight.
	In March of 1999 Kelmendi and his two sons were taken from their house and
later killed.  Bitiqi (one of Flora Brovina's defenders) and his wife were
beaten, and nearly killed, in their home.  They sentenced the journalist
Fistic to a year of jail only for having attached a leaflet to a window
(Free Press Serbia, April 1999); they sentenced the painter Bogoljub
Arsenijevic Maki to three years of jail . . . It is only by pure coincidence
that they did not do the same to me (Brecht again), each one of us could
say.
	She has been in prison almost a year, although sick, although without any
guilt, the doctor, poetess, humanitarian activist Flora Brovina.
	They condemned her to twelve years of prison without any proof.  Except if
the incriminating material were the bandages and wool for knitting, which
were treated before the court as if they were bombs, rifles, and explosives.
	Something like this occurs only in literature, right?  The work is
entitled: Literary resources in judicial practice.  In said work the doctor
and poetess is converted into a terrorist.  In this way, the prisoner is
made more well known in the world.  Was this the objective?  Many
governments and many non-governmental organizations in the world are
interested in the destiny of Flora Brovina.   Emissaries from the UN visit
her in prison.  Her poetry is translated into many languages, they give her
literary prizes . . . Nevertheless, she continues to be imprisoned.  Perhaps
precisely for those things!
	The prisoner that carries the name Flora Brovina, Albanian born, continues
to be incarcerated in the city of Pozarevac, without the right to speak her
mother tongue with her husband, who visits her every fifteen days, each
visit lasting thirty minutes.  The prisoner that carries the name Flora
Brovina, by vocation and by work a poetess,
continues to be incarcerated in Pozarevac, without the right to have a
pencil, in other words, without the right to write.  In a poem Flora Brovina
writes: If you have heard my poetry you know how I sing/If you know how I
sing do not interrupt me.  For the poets/poetesses, writing means surviving,
and disabling them from the possibility of writing means disabling them from
the latter.  Will this be the objective? They have treated political
prisoners in other times and regimes differently-some were even crueler.
Ivo Andric wrote "Ex Ponto" in a prison in the time of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.  The communists translated Marx and Engels in the prison of Sremska
Mitrovica, in the epoch of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.  Milovan Djilas,
political prisoner Number One since then, translated Milton in the communist
prison, which seems to me the same as where Flora Brovina is presently
incarcerated.
	The poet Gojko Djogo (beginning of the 80s) wrote his famous Defense of
poetry in prison.  The "defamed" court of The Hague recently allowed Dusan
Tadic to paint in jail-these paintings were sold in an auction. Included is
the hero of our times, painter Bogoljub Arsenijevic Maki, whose bones were
broken by the police and who thought that he would die, who succeeded in
making drawings in jail.  We could see these drawings in the past in the
Center for Cultural Decontamination in Belgrade. Only to the poetess Flora
Brovina they have not left a pencil.  From the mercy of whom, on the whim of
whom does this depend?  Or, perhaps, is it about the fear that she could
write of?
	They say that Flora Brovina is not in jail for her poems, but who knows why
she is in jail.  For having had in her possession bandages and wool for
knitting sweaters?! What difference is there between the bandages, wool for
knitting, and poems? Perhaps for being Albanian?  Two million other
Albanians remain, for certain some of them are also in jail. Many more
eminent Albanians remain.  Because she has organized demonstrations?  They
organize demonstrations here also. Because she was the President of the
League of Albanian Women? They have a similar organization here also. By the
will of whom or on the whim of whom have they chosen Flora Brovina? By the
will of whom or on the whim of whom have they not permitted her to now write
in jail?
	Nikolay Buharin, in a letter to Stalin speaking of the case of the poet
Mandelstam, wrote: "The poets always have reason. History is always on the
side of the poets." Are there ministers in the government of Serbia who dare
to write something like that to their boss about Flora Brovina?
	Mr. Jankovic (Minister of Justice of Serbia) or Mr. Simic (Minister of
Culture of Serbia). Because: What sinister hour reins around heads of gray,
says the poetess.  For a start, give a pencil to the poetess Flora Brovina!

(DANAS, March 31, 2000)
Written by Radmila Lazic

PART FOUR

	Radmila Lazic is famous as a poet, but is also famous as a person
compromised against the war, nationalism, and ethnic discrimination since
1991. She made a critique of her writer colleagues from the Union of Serbian
Writers (UKS), accusing UKS as instigators of war since 1991, as one of the
institutions that prepared the psychological terrain for the war, hate
towards the other/different.
	Radmila Lazic, a poet who, in this country, knows best the poetry of her
Russian pen sister Marina Tsvetaeva, wrote six poetry books, wrote with
other women from ex-Yugoslavia-Rada Ibekovic from Croatia, philosopher;
Marusa Krece, poet from Slovenia; Biljana Jovanovic from Belgrade, writer of
a diary against the war, the human and material devastation.
	Presently Radmila Lazic will publish a women's poetry anthology "Cats go to
heaven."  Radmila Lazic is a person that is extremely determined for the
liberation of Flora Brovina. She actively participated in the selection of
Flora Brovina's poetry and Flora B.'s book of poetry in Serbian, which will
come out in the next few days in Belgrade.  Radmila was the promoter of the
Belgrade women's (feminist) magazine "Profemina," and has been a member of
the Civil Resistance Movement, an anti-war organization that began in 1991
by opposing the war and ethnic hate. Radmila stayed loyal all these years to
this compromise and is always disloyal to the country, the state . . .

Stasa Zajovic

PART FIVE

April 20: Flora Brovina in jail for one year Act of protest-organized by the
Center for Cultural Decontamination of Belgrade (CZKD).
	It was the second act of protest, both times with the demand to liberate
Flora Brovina, organized by the same Center.  On the first occasion, which
took place in December of 1999, activists such as the representative of the
UN for human rights participated.  In summary, the people that followed the
trial of Flora Brovina and had the occasion to visit her in jail on November
25, 1999.  Flora Brovina was sentenced December 9, 1999 to twelve years of
prison.
	On April 20 the lawyers spoke.  Radmila Lazic, poet, a woman who expended
the most effort among the writers of this country for the liberation of
Flora Brovina, was moderator.
	At the beginning, she said that there is no proof for the guilt of Flora:
"The Brovina case is paradigmatic and at the same time unique. Brovina was
detained a year ago in Pristina, and although she was sick, they took her to
the investigative detention until last December 9, when they gave her a
Draconian sentence, under the accusation of having helped KLA terrorists.
Sadly, Flora Brovina's husband, Ajri Begu, could not attend the sentencing
because they would not let him cross the border, just as one of Flora's
lawyers could not, Hisnija Bitiqi, who was recently attacked in his home".
(Happily, last Friday, April 21, they allowed Ajri Begu to cross the border
and we had the opportunity to talk with him).
	Here is an account of what the lawyers said:
	Rajko Danilovic: "The trial of Flora was one of the typical political
processes."
	Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco, lawyer, and president of the Yugoslav Committee for
Human Rights: "Flora Brovina has been accused because she has done nothing.
She is an enemy for the Serbian regime because she was an activist in a
humanitarian organization and because she is a poet.
	Flora puts into question the perception that a majority of Serbian citizens
hold, that the Albanians are an "inferior race." Sadly, Flora is not a
figure around whom it is possible to mobilize the public opinion in Serbia:
the opposition parties have not mobilized, nor have NGOs, save a few
exceptions.  Brovina has become the most expensive hostage in Serbia.  She
is a victim of repression and ethnic discrimination."
	Biljana Kovacevic-Vuco doubts that the Supreme Court of Serbia will alter
the sentence and free her on May 16, 2000 when they will ponder this
decision.
	Contrary to Vuco, lawyer Branko Stanic expressed faith that the Supreme
Court will free Flora Brovina the next May 16.
	Vojin Dimitrijevic, expert in the area of international law, representative
of the Belgrade Center of Human Rights, said: "'Brave' fighters for the
Serbian cause have detained a woman that during the war decided to stay in
her city, to cure people.  After this cowardly and low arrest, people that
had not even shown their faces in Law school judged her.  They took her
hostage.  For this, those that are lawyers by profession should also assume
responsibility.  Where are the writers to rebel against the arrest of this
eminent writer?  Where are the doctors while their colleague is imprisoned,
imprisoned because she respected the Hippocratic oath?  Flora Brovina is the
victim of a minimum lack of respect for the profession.  Of a system that
dirties and humiliates everything, we are all accomplices, we are
accomplices of cowardice, even more so because a woman has been detained-an
Albanian.  Brovina declared that if she were free, she would return to
Kosovo, she would raise her voice against the violence that her compatriots,
the Albanians, are committing.  I am convinced that she would do it."

PART SIX

Report on the trial of five Albanian students in Belgrade, April 26,
2000
	It is the third time that I have observed the trial for the same
"terrorists," Albanian students from the University of Belgrade, in the same
room of the Belgrade court, room N3 at 9 am. According to the habitual
"ritual," the young accused wear handcuffs, which are ordered to be removed
in the room, this time in front of very few people.  Some students with
backpacks who came before did not show.
	The police prohibited my friend T. from entering because she wore short
pants, which in fact were not so short, but my friend was marked already as
insubmissive.
	The whole affair began in April of 1999 when the police, better said, the
state security agents, brought a man and a woman, owners of a small business
on that street, to help in an act of breaking and entering a certain
department.  The judge, who wanted to be humorous, posed a provocative
question to the patriotic witness, who repeated that she is "a citizen of
this state...": "What was the policeman's identity card like?"  She could
not respond, because then (April '99) the police made them abandon their
business and follow them.
	During two hours of their testimony, we could hear so many foolish things,
things without rhyme or reason.  She had to confirm that she had seen a
notebook with "Shiptar" (derogatory name for Albanians) terrorist names and
numbers of 300, 400 DM and she said that these were "salaries of the KLA."
She said that the notebook was of a maroon color, but in fact it was blue.
In that moment the judge showed the incriminating notebook, asking her to
identify it.  "Yes, of course it is written in 'Shiptar' and the numbers are
also inside."  The judge, with extreme cynicism, continued: "You do not know
'shiptar'--is it written in Cyrillic or Latin letters?"  There was a brief
pause, as the woman thought: "Cyrillic, but I had forgotten the color of the
notebook, a year has passed, it is logical that one forgets."  The judge
again: "How many people were in the group?"  And she responded: "Do you
refer to the inspectors or those from the TV?"  The woman said that there
were five, six, seven, "I wasn't very afraid."  The judge asked: "Were they
carrying something when they entered?"  The witness asked, "What do you
mean, carrying?"  "I'm referring to if they carried cameras, photographic
machines with which they took photos, etc.?"  The witness said: "They
carried two small white boxes.  I do not know anything about cameras and
such things, they filmed with a camera that vase where the bombs were."
Judge: "Can you tell us where the vase was?"  Witness: "The inspector
climbed up on a chair and looked in the closets, there were toys there, he
took a toy from the closet, threw it to the floor and since there were no
bombs there, he took other toys and afterwards discovered a hole--there were
two bombs, he let me see them, I thought that they were made of cardboard.
He passed them to me so that I could see, I did not dare to take them, the
inspector told me that there were "Bosnian" bombs inside the bombs, he let
me see."  "The vase, where was the vase?" asked the judge.  The witness: "On
the wall, on a metal shelf."  The judge: "What was inside the vase?"  The
witness: "The inspector took out four bombs."  "What do you mean, four?"
asked the judge with astonishment, and continued: "If there were two found
(by the inspector) in the closet and four in the vase, then how many total
were there?"  The angered witness responded: "I know there were five, six,
but there were also two KLA banners."  The defense of the "terrorists" asked
a few questions, to which the witness answered in the same style, and at the
end she became a weak witness for the state and the police, in the manner
that they let her leave the room after questioning her for two hours.  After
the recess they questioned another witness who said that the vase was on the
floor next to the bed and not on the shelf on the wall; same as the woman,
he said that there were four bombs, he had one in his hands, they were real.
They went to bring the woman witness to the room, or rather, they ordered
her to enter and the male witness was very afraid, he was so afraid that he
could not even read Latin letters, neither did he know that "KLA" was
written in Latin letters and said that "these 'shiptar' inscriptions (KLA
writing) were written in Cyrillic and that this "is proof."  The only thing
that both witnesses agreed on was that the accused in front of them was a
young Albanian, who was with his head lowered, he was almost mute, feeling a
kind of shame for having to participate in this deplorable and miserable
farce.
	Nevertheless, there is something comforting: a young person of ethnic
Serbian origin, girlfriend of one of the "terrorists," stated to the court
that her boyfriend is not a "terrorist," but rather a victim of the deepest
hate that generates wars and devastation and "there does not exist a force
that could separate us."

Written by Stefi Ivljev, Women in Black

==========================================

NEW YORK TIMES
U.N. Delegation Winds Up Visit to Kosovo

By CARLOTTA GALL
April 30, 2000

PRISTINA, Kosovo, April 29 -- The eight-member delegation from the United
Nations Security Council, which came to Kosovo to give a stern message to
all sides to stop the violence and to urge on the United Nations mission
here, wound up its visit today somewhat muted by the complexities on the
ground.
     "Visiting areas around Kosovo has made us realize how enormous the task
is," said the chairman of the delegation, Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of
Bangladesh, describing the United Nations mission in Kosovo. "When we passed
the resolution," creating the mission, he added, the United Nations
ambassadors "had no idea how involved the mission's officials would be in
day-to-day affairs."
     Despite some clear differences within the delegation on the performance
of the peacekeeping mission and the United Nations civilian administration
in Kosovo, members said they were pleasantly surprised by the progress made
in bringing the ethnic communities together after the war. The delegation
included the United Nations ambassadors from China and Russia.
     The unusual visit by the United Nations ambassadors came at the
invitation of the director of the United Nations mission in Kosovo, Dr.
Bernard Kouchner, who is seeking more support and personnel for his
operations.
     "I invited them so they could discover the reality," he said during a
break in meetings.
     China and Russia in particular have criticized the peacekeeping
operation for its failure to protect Serbs from revenge attacks by returning
Kosovo Albanian refugees, and for peacekeepers' failure to carry out their
full mandate.
     The peacekeepers came in last year after the 78-day NATO bombing
campaign forced President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw the troops sent
into Kosovo, where a separatist movement was seeking independence for the
largely Albanian province of Serbia.
     At the start of the Security Council visit, the ambassadors from China
and Russia sent a clear message of their countries' opposition to the NATO
bombing campaign, when they traveled to Kosovo by way of Belgrade, in a
symbolic recognition of Yugoslavia's sovereignty over Kosovo.
     The two ambassadors were guests of the Yugoslav government and met with
Mr. Milosevic and Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Sainovic, both of whom have
been indicted as war criminals by the war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
     "I was just traveling to Pristina through Belgrade in a national
capacity," the Russian ambassador, Sergey Lavrov, said when he arrived in
Kosovo. "I did not go there as part of the delegation."
     The current president of the Security Council, Robert Fowler of Canada,
nevertheless protested their action. Dr. Kouchner said it had sent the wrong
message to people in Kosovo.
     He also did not hide his disappointment that the ambassadors from three
of the five permanent members of the Security Council – the United States,
Britain and his own native France -- turned down the invitation to Kosovo in
favor of a trip to Congo. His request that the Security Council also send
someone to look specifically at the issue of missing persons -- a source of
continued tension and weekly demonstrations in Kosovo -- was also ignored.
     "They are feeling very isolated," said one official in the leadership
of the United Nations mission here.
     Mr. Lavrov criticized what he said was a failure to meet the
requirements of United Nations Resolution 1244, which governs the mission's
operation in Kosovo. He called for stronger contacts with Belgrade and
greater recognition of Yugoslavia's sovereignty over Kosovo.
     But Mr. Chowdhury said that the delegation had been favorably impressed
and would commend the work of Dr. Kouchner and his team.
     "Implementation of 1244 is seen by each of us from our own point of
view," he said. He added that despite constraints, the "effort is being made
in full earnestness."
     Later, at a news conference, he said the delegation would not recommend
any change to the resolution when it comes up for renewal in June. "We
believe it should continue," he said.
     The delegation was given an exhaustive tour of the province, from the
school that is training Serbs and Albanians to be police officers to a
cemetery where the war crimes tribunal is exhuming bodies of people killed
by Serbian forces last year. The delegates also met with leaders of the
various ethnic groups.
     Dr. Kouchner seems to have won their support for a United Nations
special envoy to be appointed to take charge of the issue of missing people
and detainees.
     An estimated 9,000 people died in two years of war in Kosovo, but there
are at least 3,000 people still missing. More than 1,000 Albanians remain in
Serbian prisons.
     The United Nations resolution that ended the war did not include a
clause on missing or detainees, but Mr. Chowdhury said there was a strong
need for a high-level figure to be appointed to deal specifically with that
issue.
     "It is something that is burning continuously, and this aspect needs
special attention," he said.

Copyright 2000 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/europe/043000kosovo-un.html

==========================================

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
UN Security Council team end mission to Kosovo

April 29, 2000

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, April 29 (AFP) - UN Security Council delegates in
Kosovo on Saturday effectively ruled out handing back the Yugoslav province
to Belgrade control by ending the UN operation there.
     But they acknowledged that the situation was still too tense for the
240,000 mainly Serbian refugees who fled the province last year to return.
     Head of the delegation, Ambassador Anwarul Karim Chowdhury of
Bangladesh said there was no reason to change the "autonomous" status Kosovo
was granted under the UN resolution that brought an end to the 1999 crisis
there.
     "We think that to adapt or change resolution 1244 would serve no useful
purpose, while the United Nations mission is ongoing," said Chowdhury.
     Under resolution 1244, the Serbian province of Kosovo remains part of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia but enjoys "substantial autonomy."
     Although the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) mandate will run out in June
10, it can be prolonged if the Security Council raises no objections.
     UNMIK chief Bernard Kouchner said he would like to see resolution 1244
clarified, with a more precise definition of "substantial autonomy."
     The ambassador said he was happy with what the delegates had found on
the ground, congratulating UNMIK on the progress he said it had made in
returning law and order to Kosovo.
     Both Chowdhury and Kouchner said it was too early to think about
bringing back the refugees from Serbia.
     They left when Yugoslav troops were forced to pull out of Kosovo after
the NATO air bombardment of Yugoslavia.
     Chowdhury also vowed to bring the plight of some 1,200 ethnic Albanians
held in Serbian jails to the attention of the Security Council.
     Earlier Saturday, delegates visited the western Kosovar town of
Djakovica, where they were told that about 1,200 local ethnic Albanians were
still missing since the conflict.
     A crowd of 200 to 300 ethnic Albanians greeted the delegation in front
of the town hall, carrying photographs of missing relatives or persons
imprisoned in Serbia.
     Addressing the delegates, the town's mayor Mazllom Kumnova said
Djakovica has suffered the highest number of casualties, the most
destruction, and also had the largest number of missing people.
     "750 civilians of all ages were killed, including babies and elderly
people, women and men," he said, adding that this figure was only a
provisional one.
     "All this barbarism has one name: Slobodan Milosevic, who you met a few
days ago," he added.
     The Russian and Chinese ambassadors to the UN, Sergei Lavrov and Shen
Guofeng, who visited Belgrade on Wednesday, were with the UN delegation in
Djakovica.
     According to Kouchner's administration, 5,500 buildings were destroyed
in the municipality of Djakovica, 1,500 of which were in the town itself,
including the mosque and every business on the main shopping street.
     Of the 1,200 local people who disappeared during the war, 317 have been
identified as being in Serbian prisons. The fate of the rest is unknown.
     The delegation also visited the town's graveyard, where a team from the
Dutch-based International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
is busy exhuming bodies.
     ICTY spokesman Franz Hovween said 39 corpses had been found in a mass
grave near the town which could hold up to 40 more.
     "Serbs gave orders to gypsies to bury these people near the cemetery,"
he said.
     Apart from those ethnic Albanians who were killed or who fled the
province, another 2,000 were taken by the retreating Yugoslav forces and
imprisoned in Serbia, where 1,200 are still jailed.
     Kouchner, who has several times called for their release, was welcomed
as a hero in Djakovica by the protesters, who shook his hand and chanted his
name.
     But Ambassador Lavrov of Russia, questioned by AFP, would not be drawn
on the prisoner issue.
     "I am not a judge, there are laws, international procedures," he said.
     "The ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) and the UN special
rapporteur for human rights, Jiri Dientstbier, are the competent authorities
for human rights issues."

Story from AFP  Copyright 2000 by Agence France-Presse (via ClariNet)
http://www.clari.net/hot/wed/df/Qkosovo-un.R8cW_AAT.html

==========================================

HUMANITARIAN LAW CENTER
Satirist Boban “Bapsi” Miletic On Trial

April 28, 2000

	The trial of satirist Boban “Bapsi” Miletic for defamation of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia opened before the District Court in Zajecar on 26
April.  The court dismissed a defense motion for the recusal of Judge
Veroljub Cvetkovic, who presides the panel in this case, and of all judges
of the Zajecar District Court.  It also found that it had jurisdiction and
denied a plea that Miletic be tried in Montenegro or Kosovo, advising the
defense to file for declaring all courts in Serbia incompetent after it
handed down its decision and the case was appealed before the Serbian
Supreme Court.
	Miletic is charged with publishing a book entitled “Cry, Mother Serbia”
which contains aphorisms that allegedly defame Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic, and with reciting aphorisms, some from the book and some new, at
a literary event in Knjazevac on 18 December 1998, and thereby again
allegedly injuring the reputation of the Yugoslav president. Miletic told
the court he could not recall exactly which aphorisms he recited at the
literary event, that none of them were aimed against Milosevic and that he
was surprised that the prosecutor found any such allusions in them.  After
hearing the testimony of Zvonimir Pavkovic, a high school literature teacher
and also a writer of aphorisms who was a participant in the literary event
in question and who spoke of aphorisms as a literary genre, Judge Cvetkovic
stated that “aphorisms are not literary works.”
	Denying a defense motion to to call Slobodan Milosevic and Milovan Ilic
Minimaks as witnesses, the court adjourned until 11 May when other witnesses
will be heard.

==========================================

FREESERBIA
Otpor activists and a lawyer injured in a street fight in Pozarevac

May 02, 2000

	Two Otpor activists and a lawyer were injured in a street fight in the
eastern Serbian town of Pozarevac, the home town of the Yugoslav president
Slobodan Milosevic. Radojko Lukovic and Momcilo Veljkovic, and a Pozarevac
lawyer, Nebojsa Sokolovic received severe injuries Friday, in a fight in
front of a cafe after trying to break a quarrel between four employees of
the local discotheque "Madona" and another Otpor member - Dragan Milanovic.
     The discotheque is owed by the son of the Yugoslav president, Marko,
and the assailants are his close friends, a report said.
     As Milanovic told Radio B2-92, after he refused to show the Madona
employees an certificate that he quit his activities in Otpor movement, they
begun harassing him, and Lukovic, Veljkovic and Sokolovic "jumped in" to try
to help him.
     After the fight, Veljkovic Sokolovic and Lukovic were admitted to the
Pozarevac medical center, with head injuries. Lukovic received the severe
jaw and eye injuries and had to be transferred to Belgrade emergency medical
center, while Veljkovic and Sokolovic expect the detention after they are
relieved from the hospital.
     Local police department in Pozarevac said Tuesday evening that it
detained Momcilo Veljkovic, Radojko Lukovic and Nebojsa Sokolovic, for
attempting murder of Sasa and Milan Lazic, two of the Madona employees.

http://anon.free.anonymizer.com/http://www.xs4all.nl/~freeserb/news/2000/05/
e-02-05-2000.html

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INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Text: State Department on Harassment of Student Opposition in Serbia

Washington File
May 04, 2000

(Boucher: U.S. "deeply concerned" about fate of three activists) (430)

	U.S. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said the United States is
"deeply concerned about the fate of three peaceful democratic activists,
attacked and beaten by armed bodyguards of Marko Milosevic, Yugoslav leader
Slobodan Milosevic's son, at a cafe in Pozarevac, Serbia, on May 2."
     Boucher, in a May 4 statement, called on "states with a presence in
Belgrade and international human rights organizations to seek access to the
Otpor detainees and make clear the international community's abhorrence of
the regime's efforts to silence its political critics."
	Following is Boucher's statement:

(begin text)

U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release
May 4, 2000

STATEMENT BY RICHARD BOUCHER, SPOKESMAN YUGOSLAV HARASSMENT OF OPPOSITION
ACTIVISTS

	The U.S. is deeply concerned about the fate of three peaceful democratic
activists, attacked and beaten by armed bodyguards of Marko Milosevic,
Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's son, at a cafe in Pozarevac, Serbia, on
May 2. The three are members of Otpor (Resistance), an organization of
students.
     The police arrested the victims rather than the attackers. Radojko
Lukovic and Nebojsa Sokolovic are being detained in the Belgrade prison
hospital. Lukovic suffered serious head injuries including a fractured skull
and loss of an eye. Momcilo Veljkovic is being detained in Pozarevac.
     The fact that the regime's police arrested the unarmed, injured victims
of an attack by armed thugs is disturbing. This kind of cooperation between
the regime, the police, and Serbia's criminal mafia -- of whom Marko
Milosevic is one of the richest and most violent -- exemplifies the bandit
nature of the Milosevic regime and its exploitation of the Serbian people
over the past 10 years. The regime has previously used criminal elements and
paramilitaries against opponents in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Montenegro.
The indication that it is now using the same tactics against the peaceful,
democratic opposition in Serbia is deeply concerning.
     These democratic activists in Serbia are courageous. They already have
said that the regime's brutality will not deter them even though they fully
expect increased pressure from the regime and those close to the Milosevic
family.
     We call upon states with a presence in Belgrade and international human
rights organizations to seek access to the Otpor detainees and make clear
the international community's abhorrence of the regime's efforts to silence
its political critics.

(end text)

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinf

http://usinfo.state.gov/cgi-bin/washfile/display.pl?p=/products/washfile/geo
g/eu&f=00050411.wwe&t=/products/washfile/newsitem.shtml

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Additional updates of the Kosovar political prisoners, including those
sentenced, missing and released, may be found at:
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-database.htm
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0037.htm
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0038.htm
http://www.khao.org/appkosova/appkosova-report0041.htm

Very useful statistics and update from ICRC on missing persons from Kosova
can be found at:
http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/480fa8736b88bbc3c12564f6004c8ad5/60c532db
df49f6878525688f006f80d4?OpenDocument

Archives of the A-PAL Newsletters may be found at:
http://www.khao.org/appkosova.htm

Albanian Prisoner Advocacy List -- Prisoner Pals Newsletter, No. 022